Author ArchivesGord Gilmour

Forty-seven years. Under a plan put forward by the Progressive Conservatives in the waning days of the provincial election, that’s how long it will have taken farmers to get a fairer education tax system. It was a foundational issue in 1984 when the province’s general farm organization, the Keystone Agricultural Producers, came into being. To […] Read more

A recent agriculture report from the Royal Bank of Canada paints a picture of a sector with big opportunities and big challenges. Farmer 4.0: How the coming skills revolution can transform agriculture is all-in on the concept of farms thriving in the digital age. It paints a picture of autonomous equipment, sensor-driven agronomy and other […] Read more

A recent call from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture for more support for farmers affected by trade issues raises some interesting questions. The CFA was responding to the announcement of $1.7 billion in direct payments to dairy producers over eight years, compensation for opening a portion of the dairy market to international competition under a […] Read more

Over the coming months Manitobans have not one, but two elections in front of them. Sept. 10 the province goes to the polls, and the federal election is scheduled for October 21 under the fixed-date election law. Most of us are probably bracing ourselves for some pretty nasty campaigning, as the tone of politics has […] Read more

Not just anyone should be able to jump behind the wheel of a semi-trailer and go rolling along a public road. After all, these rigs can carry staggering amounts of weight — for example, a Super-B can carry 42 tonnes of grain in a single load. To put that into perspective, it’s the equivalent of […] Read more

Farm labour, or rather the shortage of it, is getting much attention lately. In recent weeks, there’s been a pilot program announced to provide temporary foreign workers (TFWs) with a path to permanent residency. There’s also been a study that suggests farms are going high tech, automating and mechanizing at an even faster rate — […] Read more

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Canada remains either a leader or laggard in the realm of support for its agriculture sector, depending on how one approaches the problem. A free market idealist who favours letting the invisible hand sort it all out might think less support to producers is a […] Read more

The Manitoba Co-operator has seen a lot of change since its inception in 1925. Through the Great Depression, Second World War, the postwar boom, the farm boom of the 1970s and the bust of the 1980s and 1990s, it has evolved right alongside its readership. It chronicled the end of summerfallow, the evolution of zero […] Read more

An old friend lives in Winnipeg along a major thoroughfare that’s slated for expansion at some yet-to-be-determined future date. He and his wife have lived there for nearly 20 years, and the word of the planned roadwork came down shortly after they bought the house. They’ve been told, in no uncertain terms, that once the […] Read more

Canada’s major grain companies — through their industry voice the Western Grain Elevator Association (WGEA) — have come out swinging against a discussion paper that puts analytical testing on the table (see Allan Dawson’s front-page story). The Canadian Grain Commission has been reviewing whether falling number and tests for the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) would serve […] Read more